Sudan Nashra: Over 50 Sudanese migrants drown off Libya | AU reinstatement tops PM’s UNGA agenda | Military retakes strategic North Kordofan city, RSF drones strike Obeid | Fasher civilians killed by strikes, hunger

As dengue fever spreads rapidly across Khartoum and Gezira, straining already-limited health services, over 50 migrants from villages on Khartoum’s eastern border with Gezira drowned earlier this month when a migrant boat sank off the Libyan coast.

Relatives in the post-RSF rule region described a sense of despair gripping the village’s young men amid dire living conditions. Once compelled to engage with the Rapid Support Forces in trade, they now fear being accused of collaboration. Caught in a bind, many are choosing to leave the country altogether, according to residents who say departures have increased this year.

And while health officials in the two central states are struggling to contain the epidemic, launching campaigns and rehabilitating hospitals, in Darfur, support to citizens remains minimal. Resistance committees and medical sources in North and South Darfur say thousands have been infected with dengue in recent weeks, while a cholera outbreak continues to spread amid a near-total collapse of the health sector.

In North Darfur’s Fasher, hunger-related deaths are rising under the RSF’s siege. The Sudanese Doctors Network warned that each day of delay in allowing food and medicines “amounts to a mass death sentence.”

Amid the deepening humanitarian crisis across Sudan, the battle for Darfur and a military resolution continues. The Sudanese Armed Forces repelled repeated RSF incursions into Fasher this week, while frontlines in Kordofan saw the military regain control of strategic positions near North Kordofan’s capital, Obeid. Yet even as it unveiled new air defense systems over the city, an RSF drone strike managed to hit a weapons and ammunition depot located inside a school.

And while the military presses its campaign on the ground, Prime Minister Kamel Idris used this week’s UN General Assembly to promote his government’s roadmap to end the war, first laid out last year by Transitional Sovereignty Council chair and military Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan. Talks on Sudan’s reinstatement to the African Union featured prominently in Idris’s meetings on the sidelines, where he told AU Commission Chair Mahmoud Ali Youssouf that his government would incorporate the outcomes of the AU’s planned Sudanese-led dialogue in October insofar as they align with the roadmap.

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AU reinstatement tops PM Kamel Idris’s agenda in UNGA

Prime Minister Kamel Idris attended the opening of the UN General Assembly’s 80th session on Tuesday — the first civilian to lead Sudan’s delegation since the war began, in what a sovereignty council source said was a bid to project a civilian face of Sudan to the world in place of Transitional Sovereignty Council chair and military Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.

Idris began his meetings on the same day with African Union Commission Chair Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, discussing four main issues, according to a senior official accompanying the delegation.

The first was Sudan’s suspension from the AU, imposed after the October 2021 coup under Article 30 of the AU Constitutive Act. Idris argued the suspension was unlawful, while Youssouf promised steps toward full reinstatement, stressing Sudan’s status as a founding member. A senior source in the Foreign Ministry confirmed that the AU is preparing urgent measures to lift the suspension.

The second issue, according to the source, concerned the parallel government led by the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan, with Youssouf rejecting any authority other than the recognized transitional government, a stance the AU swiftly expressed after the rival administration was declared from Nyala in July. 

Third, the two sides addressed the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and Kordofan. Youssouf promised coordinated action with the UN, including the possibility of aid airdrops to Kordofan’s besieged cities.

The fourth topic was the AU’s initiative for a Sudanese-led dialogue, set to launch in Addis Ababa on October 6. Idris said his government would integrate the dialogue’s outcomes insofar as they are consistent with its roadmap, based on the one presented by Burhan at last year’s General Assembly, according to the Foreign Ministry source.

In his address last year, Burhan laid out his proposal to end the war: a halt in combat operations and the withdrawal of the RSF from occupied areas and their disarmament, paving the way for a comprehensive political process.

But three political party leaders who received invitations for the AU’s October talks told Mada Masr last week that the agenda revolves around the roadmap presented by the Quad — the US-led diplomatic track on Sudan.

The Quad — comprising the United States, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates; Sudan’s adversary in international courts — issued a statement in mid-September presenting its own proposal, which Sudan staunchly rejected in what a Foreign Ministry source said was a new political strategy in Khartoum’s dealings with international actors: no process without recognition and no parity with the RSF.

A Quad meeting was held on Wednesday on the sidelines of the UNGA, initially postponed due to disagreements over the draft final statement, according to a source from Sudan’s Foreign Ministry and its permanent mission to the UN.

The UAE objected to points pertaining to the status of the RSF, insisting that the group be recognized as a de facto authority, the source told Mada Masr. Egypt, the US and Saudi Arabia rejected any move that might confer legitimacy on the RSF’s government.

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry had reached out to the US, Saudi and Egyptian sides to clarify its position on the Quad roadmap, according to the source, who added that Khartoum now plans to hold a series of consultations with international partners in early October to advance a plan rooted in its own earlier proposal.

In his address to the UNGA on Friday, Idris said implementation of the plan is already underway, adding that his government will lead a Sudanese-led dialogue aimed at preparing for free elections, pledging to facilitate the return of Sudanese abroad to join the dialogue. Idris stressed that Sudan rejects any external dictates undermining national ownership of the peace process, calling this a red line. Safeguarding state sovereignty and strengthening national institutions, he said, are both an urgent priority and an existential matter for the Sudanese people.

Sudan’s reinstatement to the AU — a longstanding demand and an anticipated outcome after Idris’s government was formed  — was brought up again in the prime minister’s engagement with East African leaders.

Idris met Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh on Tuesday. Discussions touched on Sudan’s AU membership and wider Horn of Africa tensions, particularly Ethiopia-Eritrea strains, according to the source accompanying the delegation. With Sudan’s ties to Eritrea deepening — including naval deployments to Port Sudan and hosting Sudanese aircraft after the unprecedented RSF drone attack on the city — Idris promised to raise mediation between the two East African countries with Burhan.

On the same day, newly-appointed Foreign Minister Mohie Eddin Salem met his Eritrean counterpart Osman Saleh to discuss the reopening of Eritrea’s embassy in Khartoum, closer bilateral coordination and Red Sea security. Salem invited the Eritrean foreign minister to visit Sudan.

Salem also held separate talks with his Latvian and Hungarian counterparts, focusing on re-engaging with the European Union, humanitarian support for Sudan and European positions regarding the Sudan crisis at the UN Security Council.

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Dozens of Sudanese migrants killed after boat capsizes off Libyan coast

Amid growing despair and fear of arrest in Khartoum’s East Nile, at least 52 Sudanese migrants from the locality drowned earlier this month while attempting to cross the Mediterranean by sea from Tobruk, Libya, to Greece.

Qassam al-Sayed al-Tayeb, a relative of one of those who drowned on the boat, told Mada Masr that his 22-year-old family member had been missing for six days when one of the survivors called them from a Libyan prison to inform them of the capsizing on September 11. Of the 66 migrants on the inflatable boat, 11 were rescued by the Libyan coastguard and placed in detention, the survivor told the family.

The International Organization for Migration said 75 Sudanese were aboard the vessel, 24 of whom survived, while the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees put the figure at 74 passengers, with only 13 survivors.

According to Tayeb, those who drowned were all young men from three villages in the East Nile locality — Eseilat, Debeibat and Aylafoun, adjacent to Gezira State. A notable from Aylafoun told Mada Masr that more than 50 youths from the village left for Libya earlier this year, compared to 20 in total last year. The figure could be even higher, he said.

Speaking to Mada Masr, Ali Fadl, a resident of the Eseilat village, described a growing sense of anxiety and uncertainty sweeping through parts of East Nile after the military seized control of Khartoum and Gezira. Many young men fear that work they carried out under the RSF’s rule in the two states could now be treated as collaboration with the paramilitary group. As a result, many are seeking ways to leave, whether to neighboring countries or to other areas within Sudan.

According to Gezira’s governor, around 5,000 people accused of collaborating with the RSF have been arrested since the military regained control of the state.

During the RSF’s control of East Nile — where many young people rely on trade for their livelihood — large numbers of youths continued working and conducting business with the paramilitary out of necessity and the realities on the ground.

East Nile lies along a key irregular migration corridor and has long been a hub for smuggling of goods and people. Even before the war, the region saw waves of youth migration to Europe. For many in the East Nile villages, incomes remain tied in one form or another to these smuggling networks.

Departures have surged this year, however, fueled by despair, fears of arrest and easier passage following the RSF’s return to several strategic areas.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 313,000 Sudanese nationals have entered Libya since the outbreak of war in April 2023, most of them from Darfur. The number is expected to rise to 550,000 by the end of 2025, with the daily influx projected to increase from 300 to 600 people.

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The main migration route runs across the Nile River, then through the Northern State, Kordofan and North Darfur. These paths shift depending on who controls the territory.

Since 2016, most of these paths have been dominated by the RSF. When the military took control of the Egypt-Sudan-Libya border triangle in April 2023, crossings were disrupted to a degree. But with the RSF’s return, the routes have reopened.

The RSF captured the strategic border triangle in June, which triggered tensions between Sudan and Libya over allegations that forces loyal to Libyan National Army commander Khalifa Haftar assisted the RSF in taking the area.

A source at the Sudanese consulate in Benghazi told Mada Masr that irregular migration has surged since the RSF’s takeover. Likewise, an official in the Northern State General Secretariat also said the state’s security committee reports indicate that around 500 irregular migrants — both Sudanese and non-Sudanese — are now crossing daily into Libya through the RSF-held triangle.

Describing the route, Ali Wad al-Hilu, a resident of Eseilat, said young men leave East Nile in smugglers’ vehicles, cross into Libya at the triangle, then travel onward to Kufra and, finally, Tobruk. The journey takes about 10 days — seven to reach the triangle and three inside Libya, he said.

Wad al-Hilu’s cousin, who made the crossing to Greece last year, told him that Sudanese smugglers have been managing the route to Libya for years. Across the border, migrants first stop in Kufra before arranging the rest of the journey with Libyan networks.

According to Wad al-Hilu, the full trip to Greece costs around US$5,000, typically paid in installments. Those unable to pay are often forced to work along the way — mining in the border triangle or working in construction in Libya, under the control of smugglers. In some cases, he said, migrants resort to selling a kidney in Libya for a large sum to finance the trip.

The Northern State official accused the RSF of facilitating migrant flows into Libya, saying authorities have received reports that the RSF are detaining migrants and demanding ransom from their families.

But an RSF military source denied the accusations, accusing Northern State officials of trying to “portray the RSF as the border demon.” A senior source in the group’s legal advisory office told Mada Masr that RSF forces intercept hundreds of migrants daily.

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Riek Machar’s trial postponed in South Sudan amid legal disputes

A special court in South Sudan postponed the trial of detained First Vice President and opposition leader Riek Machar, along with seven senior members of his Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), all of whom face charges of high treason.

The hearing, which opened on Monday with Machar in attendance, was adjourned until next week after prosecutors challenged the licenses of two defense lawyers, while the defense in turn questioned the court’s authority to try the case.

Machar and the other defendants are accused of murder, treason, conspiracy, financing terrorism, and crimes against humanity in connection with the killing of around 250 soldiers in clashes earlier this year in the town of Nasir, Upper Nile.

Three SPLM-IO sources told Mada Masr that the movement sees the charges as a political maneuver by Machar’s “partner in power,” President Salva Kiir, to sideline him. The defense team told Mada Masr that none of the allegations hold and expressed confidence that he would be acquitted.

The three-judge panel, chaired by Justice James Alala Deng, said the court needed more time to review written submissions from both sides concerning the licensing dispute, as well as a separate defense motion filed on Tuesday that challenges the court’s jurisdiction.

Wednesday’s session was consumed by procedural disputes. Prosecutor Sabri Wani Ladu objected to the participation of defense lawyers Warnyang Kiir Warniang and Deng John Deng, arguing that they were not properly licensed to practice.

A lawyer in Juba, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Mada Masr that Machar enjoys full constitutional immunity as first vice president and cannot be tried without a two-thirds vote in parliament to lift it — a step that has not been taken, which they said renders the presidential decree establishing the special court unconstitutional.

They noted that the peace deals signed in 2015 and 2018 also called for a hybrid court overseen by guarantors of the peace process. Prosecutors, however, maintain national courts have the authority to move forward.

When contacted by Mada Masr, the prosecution only said that the matter remains under legal review.

For now, the court is expected to continue hearing arguments on procedural matters before moving on to the charges, a process that could drag out the legal battle between prosecution and defense.

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Military recaptures Um Samima, RSF drone strikes Obeid

Despite installing a new air defense system, the city of Obeid, capital of North Kordofan, came under drone attack on Thursday when an RSF drone struck a school in the Qubba neighborhood, east of the city.

The school had been repurposed by the Sudanese Armed Forces as an ammunition depot and troop assembly point. The depot appeared to hold various kinds of ammunition, which ignited and scattered across nearby and distant areas, local activist Mohamed al-Safrawy, who lives near the site, told Mada Masr. There were no fatalities, he said, though an elderly man sustained minor injuries.

Last week, the RSF attempted to strike military positions in Obeid with strategic drones, but the military’s air defenses downed three of them. At the time, a senior military officer told Mada Masr that new air defense systems have been installed to shield the city and the command hubs that coordinate operations across western Sudan.

On the ground, new clashes broke out this week west of Obeid, culminating in the capture of the strategic Um Samima area, which saw control switching between the military and the RSF over the past two months before falling back under RSF control in late July.

On Thursday, the joint force of the military-allied armed movements launched a surprise assault on the Ayyara area under artillery cover and defeated the RSF force stationed there, a field source told Mada Masr. RSF fighters tried to encircle the attacking force but failed, with fighting leading to the collapse of their main defense lines and inflicting losses in troops and equipment, the source said.

Two weeks earlier, the RSF had seized Ayyara, which served as one of the military’s key defensive positions around Obeid. The takeover allowed the RSF to push into the city’s western outskirts, before the military and allied forces retook the initiative earlier this week, driving RSF units back.

The push continued on Friday, when military units, backed by the joint force, launched an assault on RSF positions west of Ayyara, a mobilized fighter told Mada Masr. The attack broke through RSF defenses, pushing forward into Abu Qaoud and then Um Samima, which they captured before chasing retreating RSF fighters to the outskirts of the town of Khawi in West Kordofan State.

The military retakes control of Um Samima, September 26. Courtesy of @moon_wolf999 on X.

Um Samima serves as a forward defensive line protecting Obeid and a key launchpad for military operations into West Kordofan.

The military also stepped up aerial strikes and supply missions elsewhere in Kordofan throughout the week. In West Kordofan, military aircraft struck RSF positions in the city of Nuhud on Monday and Tuesday, a military source told Mada Masr. In the besieged cities of Babanusa, West Kordofan, and Dalang, South Kordofan, the military conducted successful airdrop operations on Thursday, delivering both logistical supplies and military equipment, according to the source.

Military units across Kordofan continue to mobilize and pursue a strategy of attrition aimed at breaking down RSF forces, the source said, predicting unprecedented clashes in North and West Kordofan in the coming weeks. The military leadership repeatedly signals its intent to press through Kordofan into Darfur to lift the RSF’s 16-month siege on North Darfur’s Fasher — the last military stronghold in the western region.

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Fasher civilians killed by strikes, hunger as RSF continues incursion attempts

Civilians in North Darfur’s Fasher once again came under RSF drone attacks as the military continues to repel repeated incursions into the city.

On Tuesday, an RSF drone targeted civilians gathered in a local market around Starlink internet devices — used amid widespread signal tower outages — killing and injuring several people, a community leader representing displaced residents in the city told Mada Masr.

Fasher’s Coordination of Resistance Committees said that more than 27 people were killed or injured in the market strike. The group condemned the assault as “part of a series of countless massacres” carried out by the RSF in a “systematic and escalating campaign.”

Dozens of civilians were killed last week in attacks on residential blocs and a drone strike on civilians attending morning prayers at a mosque in the Abu Shouk displacement camp to the northwest.

A military source told Mada Masr earlier this month that the RSF aims not only to capture Fasher but to depopulate it as well — forcing civilians out while attempting to advance and establish defensive lines within the city.

On Monday, the military repelled a new RSF assault along Fasher’s southern and northeastern axes, a field source said. The battle began at 6 am and lasted into the afternoon, the source told Mada Masr, with the military, allied joint force and mobilized fighters pushing back the attack and inflicting losses on RSF fighters and equipment.

Fighting reignited on Thursday when the RSF shelled the northeastern and southeastern fronts with artillery and drones. The military engaged on the ground, and struck troop carriers transporting 200 fighters, along with armored vehicles, according to the military’s Sixth Infantry Division.

Amid the military escalation, Fasher’s humanitarian crisis continues to deepen. The Sudanese Doctors Network reported that hunger-related deaths among women and children rose to 23 in September.

Acute malnutrition caused by the ongoing RSF blockade, they said, is leading to a surge in deaths among the most vulnerable. “What is happening is not just a humanitarian crisis,” the group warned, “but a systematic crime [...] targeting Fasher’s residents with famine as a weapon of war.”

Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission for Sudan released a report, which, among violations committed by both parties to the war, highlighted the RSF siege of Fasher. The mission found the group is committing the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare. Combined with the destruction of humanitarian convoys and facilities, these actions, the report said, may also amount to the crime against humanity of extermination.

“Every day of delay in lifting the siege and allowing the entry of food and medicine amounts to a mass death sentence,” the Sudanese Doctors Network said.

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Dengue fever surges in Khartoum, Gezira as Darfur reels amid health sector collapse

Dengue fever is spreading rapidly throughout Khartoum and Gezira, where thousands of new infections have been reported in the past two weeks, the health minister’s office said. Authorities are scrambling to contain the crisis while the government continues to call residents back after the military’s takeover of central Sudan.

In Darfur, meanwhile, the epidemic crisis is deepening amid the near-total collapse of the health system.

Residents in the capital link the surge in infections to the influx of returnees amid collapsed infrastructure. Salah Eddin al-Taher, a resident of Khartoum City, said stagnant rainwater, poor drainage and mounting piles of garbage have created an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes. He blamed the government for rushing people back to the capital without first addressing these issues.

The office of Health Minister Haitham Mohamed acknowledged the rise in cases, telling Mada Masr that the collapse of infrastructure and the ministry’s weakened capacity in the capital have worsened the situation. The recent cholera outbreak, officials in the office added, highlighted how limited both federal and state health authorities are in responding to such catastrophes.

Earlier this year, cholera spread rapidly through Khartoum as residents began returning, overwhelming the healthcare sector and exposing the limits of essential services as people struggled to access clean water and medical facilities hamstrung by frequent power outages across the capital.

A source in the Sudanese Doctors Network also held the government responsible, saying the return of residents to Khartoum and Gezira has posed major health challenges in the absence of public health guidelines, emergency protocols or adequate medical supplies.

On Wednesday, Khartoum State Health Ministry said that 14,012 people have been infected with dengue since January 2025. According to ministry figures, Karari locality in northern Omdurman — the capital’s most densely populated area since the war began — has been worst affected, with 7,245 cases. The ministry said it has been conducting a vector control campaign for over a month.

In Gezira, more than 3,000 dengue infections have been reported since January, including 176 deaths by September, the state’s Health Minister Osama Abdel Rahman told Mada Masr. He added that cholera infections in the state reached 1,464, including 52 deaths over the same period.

Abdel Rahman said medicines have been distributed across the state and treatment in hospitals is free of charge. No new cholera cases, he said, have been recorded in major localities, adding that the ministry is pursuing a vector control plan and that 80 percent of medical staff have returned to work, particularly in Greater Wad Madani locality.

Beyond central Sudan, other states are also reeling in even worse conditions. In Nyala, South Darfur’s capital, a member of the city’s Resistance Committees told Mada Masr that hospitals and health centers are overwhelmed by fever cases suspected to be dengue. The source estimated that infections in Nyala alone may have reached 10,000 since the outbreak. A medical source in the city warned that numbers could rise further in the absence of a clear health protocol and given the war-damaged infrastructure.

In Tawila, North Darfur — where thousands have been displaced since the start of the war — the health sector has been almost completely destroyed. Displaced families have little to no medical support, with roads cut off by heavy rains. Alongside dengue, Tawila is also grappling with cholera outbreaks. A member of Tawila’s branch of the General Coordination of IDPs and Refugee Camps in Sudan said thousands of people are suffering from fevers suspected to be dengue.

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